@Blur.3465 said:
In all honesty, I wish they made Thief more like the GW1 Assassin. The entire introduction of stealth to ANY profession is bad and shouldn't have even been a thing to begin with.

That's the spirit. I don't like being loaded up with conditions constantly so lets throw out that out also, there should just be base damage, everyone with the same skills on the same cooldown, and only one dodge each (except evades are apparently overpowered also with thieves so dodge is only for the animation).

@Blur.3465 said:
In all honesty, I wish they made Thief more like the GW1 Assassin. The entire introduction of stealth to ANY profession is bad and shouldn't have even been a thing to begin with.

That's the spirit. I don't like being loaded up with conditions constantly so lets throw out that out also, there should just be base damage, everyone with the same skills on the same cooldown, and only one dodge each (except evades are apparently overpowered also with thieves so dodge is only for the animation).

No idea where that sarcasm came from, but since thief keeps getting nerfed because of QQ and stealth the profession itself will never be in a good position.
Re-working it and not making it dependent on stealth would be one way of fixing it and making it actually stand toe-to-toe with other professions in actual fights and make it more rewarding and less punishing than it is now.

@Blur.3465 said:
In all honesty, I wish they made Thief more like the GW1 Assassin. The entire introduction of stealth to ANY profession is bad and shouldn't have even been a thing to begin with.

That's the spirit. I don't like being loaded up with conditions constantly so lets throw out that out also, there should just be base damage, everyone with the same skills on the same cooldown, and only one dodge each (except evades are apparently overpowered also with thieves so dodge is only for the animation).

No idea where that sarcasm came from, but since thief keeps getting nerfed because of QQ and stealth the profession itself will never be in a good position.
Re-working it and not making it dependent on stealth would be one way of fixing it and making it actually stand toe-to-toe with other professions in actual fights and make it more rewarding and less punishing than it is now.

So which is it, are we trying to get rid of stealth entirely or re-working it? Just in this thread alone your stance if you have one is all over the place. I can't tell if you're actually mad because Silent Scope was nerfed and you depended on it or if you're taking a false stance on stealth and you actually want it gone because you don't like fighting against stealth. Stealth skills in this game are fun to use and a build that uses stealth can be fun to play. Stealth shouldn't be allowed to chain for long duration in combat which is why it hurt the Deadeye to have their active defensive measure be a stealth trait, especially one baked into another resource pool that absolutely has to be used often, only to predictably have it nerfed out of necessity. I think we agree on that and I think that's what your point is, but your arguments are kind of hard to follow.

@Obtena.7952 said:
Compensation is one of many solutions ... and it's not one we see Anet provide. Better set your sights on something else.

I'm not saying Deadeye isn't in need of a buff, but it's not likely going to come in the form of compensation with the goal of getting it's status back for PVP. That's just not how we see things work in this game.

@Obtena.7952 said:
Compensation is one of many solutions ... and it's not one we see Anet provide. Better set your sights on something else.

I'm not saying Deadeye isn't in need of a buff, but it's not likely going to come in the form of compensation with the goal of getting it's status back for PVP. That's just not how we see things work in this game.

Again, Anet has compensated for nerfs immideatly plenty of times before. It is something they do. Unfortunately, thief is a class that Anet doesnt seem to be very fond of, getting constant unneccessary (and in fact, counterproductive) nerfs for no reason. It seems they are adamant to make sure that if a thief gets into a 1v1 against another class, no matter how good the thief is, they are going to lose.

I think you aren't being honest with yourself here. Anet will change something they think doesn't work the way they want; they will not simply compensate for something they took away in one area, just to make up for it in another. Anet does not make these changes because they intend to 'ignore' the class or for no reason, so if that's your position on things, there is little value in you responding.

There are lots of hints here in the last patch about how Anet feels about some of the inbalance of risk/reward that exists in the competitive game modes; Compensation simply doesn't make sense where re-calibration was the goal.

If you think balancing is only driven by performance and justified by comparisons to other classes then prepare to be educated:

@Blur.3465 said:
In all honesty, I wish they made Thief more like the GW1 Assassin. The entire introduction of stealth to ANY profession is bad and shouldn't have even been a thing to begin with.

That's the spirit. I don't like being loaded up with conditions constantly so lets throw out that out also, there should just be base damage, everyone with the same skills on the same cooldown, and only one dodge each (except evades are apparently overpowered also with thieves so dodge is only for the animation).

No idea where that sarcasm came from, but since thief keeps getting nerfed because of QQ and stealth the profession itself will never be in a good position.
Re-working it and not making it dependent on stealth would be one way of fixing it and making it actually stand toe-to-toe with other professions in actual fights and make it more rewarding and less punishing than it is now.

So which is it, are we trying to get rid of stealth entirely or re-working it? Just in this thread alone your stance if you have one is all over the place. I can't tell if you're actually mad because Silent Scope was nerfed and you depended on it or if you're taking a false stance on stealth and you actually want it gone because you don't like fighting against stealth. Stealth skills in this game are fun to use and a build that uses stealth can be fun to play. Stealth shouldn't be allowed to chain for long duration in combat which is why it hurt the Deadeye to have their active defensive measure be a stealth trait, especially one baked into another resource pool that absolutely has to be used often, only to predictably have it nerfed out of necessity. I think we agree on that and I think that's what your point is, but your arguments are kind of hard to follow.

My whole point is that Deadeye keeps getting nerfed because of stealth, rendering it useless and annoying to play. Thief as a whole keeps getting nerfed because of stealth all the time, because everyone QQs about it and asks for nerfs. Other professions get buffs while thieves always get nerfed to the ground.
The whole reason behind nerfs is stealth. The whole reason why Thief falls behind other professions is also stealth.
I am angry at the nerf, of course I am, but instead of constantly nerfing stealth, ANet should simply remove it and re-do the whole point of Thief, making it NOT rely on stealth and shine in combat again, allowing us to be able to sustain ourselves and stand well in 1v1 combat.
Just by testing other professions in PvP now have I come to realize how miserable Thief in general plays, regardless of build.

My proposal is just to make it similar to how Assassin in GW1 worked, that was fun to play...

@Obtena.7952 said:
Compensation is one of many solutions ... and it's not one we see Anet provide. Better set your sights on something else.

I'm not saying Deadeye isn't in need of a buff, but it's not likely going to come in the form of compensation with the goal of getting it's status back for PVP. That's just not how we see things work in this game.

@Obtena.7952 said:
Compensation is one of many solutions ... and it's not one we see Anet provide. Better set your sights on something else.

I'm not saying Deadeye isn't in need of a buff, but it's not likely going to come in the form of compensation with the goal of getting it's status back for PVP. That's just not how we see things work in this game.

Again, Anet has compensated for nerfs immideatly plenty of times before. It is something they do. Unfortunately, thief is a class that Anet doesnt seem to be very fond of, getting constant unneccessary (and in fact, counterproductive) nerfs for no reason. It seems they are adamant to make sure that if a thief gets into a 1v1 against another class, no matter how good the thief is, they are going to lose.

I think you aren't being honest with yourself here. Anet will change something they think doesn't work the way they want; they will not simply compensate for something they took away in one area, just to make up for it in another. Anet does not make these changes because they intend to 'ignore' the class or for no reason, so if that's your position on things, there is little value in you responding.

There are lots of hints here in the last patch about how Anet feels about some of the inbalance of risk/reward that exists in the competitive game modes; Compensation simply doesn't make sense where re-calibration was the goal.

Lmao yes arenanet makes balance decisions based on a very clear goal and through their vast knowledge of their own game and it’s mechanics have proven this time and time again with their very concise and well thought out changes that most definitely follow through with thier disigned goals. I mean just look at the thief game description,couldn’t be more closer the thief we have now. Lol right? They definitely put a lot of thought and reasoning behind their changes lol right? All the changes to the classes and mode over last few years shows they have a great grasp of thier game right? Donno bout that. Look at thir reasoning for necro being left alone in PvP, it had a healthy playerbase so it must be fine lmao what? The class has cool flavour in its theme and skills and is always a highly populated class even when underperforming and win rates are dependent on the whole group not an individual class in a PvP conquest mode so..... yeah arenets logic is solid!

This thread should just be closed. You all acting like stealth is just infinitely spammable on thief when it has costs to it, or getting bursted 100 to 0 by a thief from stealth which isn't possible unless you are just super bad at this game and have 0 knowledge of thief.

@omgdracula.6345 said:
This thread should just be closed. You all acting like stealth is just infinitely spammable on thief when it has costs to it, or getting bursted 100 to 0 by a thief from stealth which isn't possible unless you are just super bad at this game and have 0 knowledge of thief.

Thank you for the voice of reason!

And there will always be QQ about stealth and asking for nerfs. Thief in general simply has to suffer for it

@omgdracula.6345 said:
This thread should just be closed. You all acting like stealth is just infinitely spammable on thief when it has costs to it, or getting bursted 100 to 0 by a thief from stealth which isn't possible unless you are just super bad at this game and have 0 knowledge of thief.

Thank you for the voice of reason!

And there will always be QQ about stealth and asking for nerfs. Thief in general simply has to suffer for it

I mean DE stealth needed a nerf, but it wasn't that good as long as you were even semi aware that there was a deadeye. I farmed them all season. The main complaint was DE stealth allowing them to escape punishment, if you somehow died to a deadeye that is just on you.

@omgdracula.6345 said:
This thread should just be closed. You all acting like stealth is just infinitely spammable on thief when it has costs to it, or getting bursted 100 to 0 by a thief from stealth which isn't possible unless you are just super bad at this game and have 0 knowledge of thief.

Thank you for the voice of reason!

And there will always be QQ about stealth and asking for nerfs. Thief in general simply has to suffer for it

This so much ^
I don’t much like the DE playstyle as I found it was heavily balanced with ease of access to stealth as well as a longer duration of it thru easy stacking etc.being a thief player who never really enjoyed the stealth playstyle part of thief but enjoyed all other mechanics of thief and it’s theme DE never seemed to have survivability outside of stealth builds by design. I have no problems with stealth itself or people that enjoy the playstyle as everyone enjoys different things. What I do have a problem with is while most classes were getting powercrept with dps,mobility and sustain thief never got same treatment or compensated for most classes being buffed in the area’s that thief would call its strenths. It seems like arenanet figures they didn’t have to cuz a thief spec can already permastealth and burst down players in seconds with rifle or with a back stab out of nowhere so because of this the class was strong enough but what about non stealth thiefs? Thieves ran around in wvw etc perma stealth backstabbing players leading to more thief is op posts even though dps on non stealthing thieves were garbage.Than rifle burst got nerfed along side more nerds also effecting core/Dd. Finally now stealth duration is nerfed lmao it’s just getting to the point of being amusing how clueless arenet is with the direction their taking thief all while people still claim it’s op out of a biased hate for the class

@Obtena.7952 said:
Compensation is one of many solutions ... and it's not one we see Anet provide. Better set your sights on something else.

I'm not saying Deadeye isn't in need of a buff, but it's not likely going to come in the form of compensation with the goal of getting it's status back for PVP. That's just not how we see things work in this game.

@Obtena.7952 said:
Compensation is one of many solutions ... and it's not one we see Anet provide. Better set your sights on something else.

I'm not saying Deadeye isn't in need of a buff, but it's not likely going to come in the form of compensation with the goal of getting it's status back for PVP. That's just not how we see things work in this game.

Again, Anet has compensated for nerfs immideatly plenty of times before. It is something they do. Unfortunately, thief is a class that Anet doesnt seem to be very fond of, getting constant unneccessary (and in fact, counterproductive) nerfs for no reason. It seems they are adamant to make sure that if a thief gets into a 1v1 against another class, no matter how good the thief is, they are going to lose.

I think you aren't being honest with yourself here. Anet will change something they think doesn't work the way they want; they will not simply compensate for something they took away in one area, just to make up for it in another. Anet does not make these changes because they intend to 'ignore' the class or for no reason, so if that's your position on things, there is little value in you responding.

There are lots of hints here in the last patch about how Anet feels about some of the inbalance of risk/reward that exists in the competitive game modes; Compensation simply doesn't make sense where re-calibration was the goal.

Lmao yes arenanet makes balance decisions based on a very clear goal and through their vast knowledge of their own game and it’s mechanics have proven this time and time again with their very concise and well thought out changes that most definitely follow through with thier disigned goals. I mean just look at the thief game description,couldn’t be more closer the thief we have now. Lol right? They definitely put a lot of thought and reasoning behind their changes lol right? All the changes to the classes and mode over last few years shows they have a great grasp of thier game right? Donno bout that. Look at thir reasoning for necro being left alone in PvP, it had a healthy playerbase so it must be fine lmao what? The class has cool flavour in its theme and skills and is always a highly populated class even when underperforming and win rates are dependent on the whole group not an individual class in a PvP conquest mode so..... yeah arenets logic is solid!

That doesn't change what I said at all ... this patch has some very clear signs of game changes that are implemented to re-establishing a sense of purpose and value to competitive game activities. For example, mounts are directing players away from certain activities. Nerfs to stealth on Theif are the same 'directing' kinds of change.

You can like or dislike what the changes are or why Anet did them. Your feelings about the changes have little to do with the intentions Anet has. Even if they didn't nerf stealth, you can see the direction that Anet generally wants competitive game modes to take, so you know certain things are going to get attention at some point ... and if you don't have your head in the sand, you know what they are.

If you think balancing is only driven by performance and justified by comparisons to other classes then prepare to be educated:

i have played some other game with chars used stealth i play a thief an the stealth is a joke this isn t a complaint or anything just a fact if the character is to have sleath may it useful or take it away completely the stealth a thief has now you might as well have no stealth at all

@Blur.3465 said:
Daredevil D/P or Core Thief is now literally the only build that CAN be of use in normal PvP arenas. I loathe WvW so I'm not even using it for comparison.

Match today:
I start capping the point, Guardian one shots me. Yep, one shots me. This was also the case with Mesmers in previous matches - they ambush you and literally ONE SHOT you.
Warrior bumps into me and keeps going after me for 1v1, can't kill the warrior, he cuts through me like butter.
I keep my range while trying to pick their team off one by one, I get instantly pulled into the fray. I use Shadow Step to escape, but I get pulled back in again.
Ranger Soulbeast finds me in mid-field while going for the cap points...kills me.
Later I down that ranger but he downs me too and then revives with the help of pet to finish me off.
I back away and target their mesmer on the way to the cap point : As we know Mesmer summons all those clones, gets my health to 0. I down mesmer, clones finish me, mesmer revives.

I stand behind what I say because of the experiences I am having with Deadeye.
It should be the only build that can stand toe-to-toe with others as it is focused on DPS and not the 'mobile/running build', but that's not possible if you end up in an experienced team.
You can shine as Deadeye with an opposing team that knows 0 about how to counter you; otherwise you're in a bad, bad spot.

EDIT: Less frustrating and more revarding to play Deadeye D/D with most of the stealth skills to give you perma stealth :P I regret returning to Deadeye Rifle for today's match.

All specs should be able to go toe-to-toe. Trouble is Anet and the rest of the player base don't think so.

@Blur.3465 said:
Daredevil D/P or Core Thief is now literally the only build that CAN be of use in normal PvP arenas. I loathe WvW so I'm not even using it for comparison.

Match today:
I start capping the point, Guardian one shots me. Yep, one shots me. This was also the case with Mesmers in previous matches - they ambush you and literally ONE SHOT you.
Warrior bumps into me and keeps going after me for 1v1, can't kill the warrior, he cuts through me like butter.
I keep my range while trying to pick their team off one by one, I get instantly pulled into the fray. I use Shadow Step to escape, but I get pulled back in again.
Ranger Soulbeast finds me in mid-field while going for the cap points...kills me.
Later I down that ranger but he downs me too and then revives with the help of pet to finish me off.
I back away and target their mesmer on the way to the cap point : As we know Mesmer summons all those clones, gets my health to 0. I down mesmer, clones finish me, mesmer revives.

I stand behind what I say because of the experiences I am having with Deadeye.
It should be the only build that can stand toe-to-toe with others as it is focused on DPS and not the 'mobile/running build', but that's not possible if you end up in an experienced team.
You can shine as Deadeye with an opposing team that knows 0 about how to counter you; otherwise you're in a bad, bad spot.

EDIT: Less frustrating and more revarding to play Deadeye D/D with most of the stealth skills to give you perma stealth :P I regret returning to Deadeye Rifle for today's match.

All specs should be able to go toe-to-toe. Trouble is Anet and the rest of the player base don't think so.

Sounds good ... not practical. It's not about what can be thought, it's about what can be done.

If you think balancing is only driven by performance and justified by comparisons to other classes then prepare to be educated:

@omgdracula.6345 said:
This thread should just be closed. You all acting like stealth is just infinitely spammable on thief when it has costs to it, or getting bursted 100 to 0 by a thief from stealth which isn't possible unless you are just super bad at this game and have 0 knowledge of thief.

Thank you for the voice of reason!

And there will always be QQ about stealth and asking for nerfs. Thief in general simply has to suffer for it

This so much ^
I don’t much like the DE playstyle as I found it was heavily balanced with ease of access to stealth as well as a longer duration of it thru easy stacking etc.being a thief player who never really enjoyed the stealth playstyle part of thief but enjoyed all other mechanics of thief and it’s theme DE never seemed to have survivability outside of stealth builds by design. I have no problems with stealth itself or people that enjoy the playstyle as everyone enjoys different things. What I do have a problem with is while most classes were getting powercrept with dps,mobility and sustain thief never got same treatment or compensated for most classes being buffed in the area’s that thief would call its strenths. It seems like arenanet figures they didn’t have to cuz a thief spec can already permastealth and burst down players in seconds with rifle or with a back stab out of nowhere so because of this the class was strong enough but what about non stealth thiefs? Thieves ran around in wvw etc perma stealth backstabbing players leading to more thief is op posts even though dps on non stealthing thieves were garbage.Than rifle burst got nerfed along side more nerds also effecting core/Dd. Finally now stealth duration is nerfed lmao it’s just getting to the point of being amusing how clueless arenet is with the direction their taking thief all while people still claim it’s op out of a biased hate for the class

Don't forget before the stealth nerf they already tried to address it by adding Reveal on marked in wvw adding them to towers/keeps and sentry's,by adding a trap that reveals and another item to throw on stealthers which also reveals. And after all of this they Still decided to hit dead eye eventhough after all the reveal adds i barely even saw any DE in wvw anymore,after this recent change theres none and theres also no point to run DE in wvw at all.

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:
Thief as a whole will never be at a spot line withe majority of other classes. Due to its mechanics and playstyles it is the class that produces the most salty players and constant thief op cries even when their garbage tier in most engagement scenarios these days the cries will keep coming. That combined with arena net not knowing much about their game,how each class players in each mode,and wanting to appease the masses thief will always struggle.just reroll another class like a lot of players have.

I thought that was Mirage. (See months of multiple "mirage OP, nerf nao!" threads per day).

Full disclosure: I'm somewhat sympathetic to thieves. My second character was a thief that I ended up playing a lot of open world content with. I enjoyed the play style so much I neglected my first character, a mesmer, for a while. But I never had the nerve to bring my thief to PvP because I had fallen in love with a niche, and apparently nerfed into unviability, minimal-stealth d/d build, that would be ineffective in competitive modes. And it looks like the profession as a whole hasn't seen any more love from Anet, rather the opposite.

I never get salty about being beaten by a thief because they're usually good. Even the odd time a DE interferes with me while fighting someone else, it's annoying, but I understand that's the DE's role. I make sure not to let it happen again by focusing the DE next time (sorry @Blur.3465 ).

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:
Thief as a whole will never be at a spot line withe majority of other classes. Due to its mechanics and playstyles it is the class that produces the most salty players and constant thief op cries even when their garbage tier in most engagement scenarios these days the cries will keep coming. That combined with arena net not knowing much about their game,how each class players in each mode,and wanting to appease the masses thief will always struggle.just reroll another class like a lot of players have.

I thought that was Mirage. (See months of multiple "mirage OP, nerf nao!" threads per day).

Full disclosure: I'm somewhat sympathetic to thieves. My second character was a thief that I ended up playing a lot of open world content with. I enjoyed the play style so much I neglected my first character, a mesmer, for a while. But I never had the nerve to bring my thief to PvP because I had fallen in love with a niche, and apparently nerfed into unviability, minimal-stealth d/d build, that would be ineffective in competitive modes. And it looks like the profession as a whole hasn't seen any more love from Anet, rather the opposite.

I never get salty about being beaten by a thief because they're usually good. Even the odd time a DE interferes with me while fighting someone else, it's annoying, but I understand that's the DE's role. I make sure not to let it happen again by focusing the DE next time (sorry @Blur.3465 ).

@omgdracula.6345 said:
This thread should just be closed. You all acting like stealth is just infinitely spammable on thief when it has costs to it, or getting bursted 100 to 0 by a thief from stealth which isn't possible unless you are just super bad at this game and have 0 knowledge of thief.

Thank you for the voice of reason!

And there will always be QQ about stealth and asking for nerfs. Thief in general simply has to suffer for it

This so much ^
I don’t much like the DE playstyle as I found it was heavily balanced with ease of access to stealth as well as a longer duration of it thru easy stacking etc.being a thief player who never really enjoyed the stealth playstyle part of thief but enjoyed all other mechanics of thief and it’s theme DE never seemed to have survivability outside of stealth builds by design. I have no problems with stealth itself or people that enjoy the playstyle as everyone enjoys different things. What I do have a problem with is while most classes were getting powercrept with dps,mobility and sustain thief never got same treatment or compensated for most classes being buffed in the area’s that thief would call its strenths. It seems like arenanet figures they didn’t have to cuz a thief spec can already permastealth and burst down players in seconds with rifle or with a back stab out of nowhere so because of this the class was strong enough but what about non stealth thiefs? Thieves ran around in wvw etc perma stealth backstabbing players leading to more thief is op posts even though dps on non stealthing thieves were garbage.Than rifle burst got nerfed along side more nerds also effecting core/Dd. Finally now stealth duration is nerfed lmao it’s just getting to the point of being amusing how clueless arenet is with the direction their taking thief all while people still claim it’s op out of a biased hate for the class

Don't forget before the stealth nerf they already tried to address it by adding Reveal on marked in wvw adding them to towers/keeps and sentry's,by adding a trap that reveals and another item to throw on stealthers which also reveals. And after all of this they Still decided to hit dead eye eventhough after all the reveal adds i barely even saw any DE in wvw anymore,after this recent change theres none and theres also no point to run DE in wvw at all.

maybe we got to list what changes would bring us back to use our deadeyes (without reverting).

i would bring my deadeye again to WvW with the following 3 changes:

unblockable rifle 2. a main reason to stealth alot was a high uptime of projectile hates. with an unblockable rifle 2 i wont oneshot em but i also dont need to 'wait'.

DR becoming an evade. you just had to use it from too far away to not get it interrupted. maybe slow the animation down if it is too fast, too safe mobility else.

mark becoming instant. the ability when pressured to use steal on core/DD to get a relief or turn the table is extremeply strong in quick fights and i would love to have that on DE too, would help it alot to feel less squishy. especially in melee range.

and
+ bonus but more work: detach malice buildup from marking. so basically you build malice up by hitting anything with ini skills and keep it while in combat. but it only has effect on your marked target. this allows you to use mark at a later point in the fight to interrupt key skills or when you are ready to burst. it also provides more flexibility in teamfights. i am oke with less flexible target choice in teamsfights, if i was more oppressive towards that target. however that would cause issues in 1 vs 1, so rather give me some flexibility.

another option ofc as always is: nerf other professions. but as i think its unlikely, id rather ask for buffs.

@Blur.3465 said:
In all honesty, I wish they made Thief more like the GW1 Assassin. The entire introduction of stealth to ANY profession is bad and shouldn't have even been a thing to begin with.

That's the spirit. I don't like being loaded up with conditions constantly so lets throw out that out also, there should just be base damage, everyone with the same skills on the same cooldown, and only one dodge each (except evades are apparently overpowered also with thieves so dodge is only for the animation).

No idea where that sarcasm came from, but since thief keeps getting nerfed because of QQ and stealth the profession itself will never be in a good position.
Re-working it and not making it dependent on stealth would be one way of fixing it and making it actually stand toe-to-toe with other professions in actual fights and make it more rewarding and less punishing than it is now.

We made a bunch of suggestions to that effect in the "ask the community" thing the devs did before HoT. The result was the revenant.

On topic; in WvW there's little to no point in running deadeye anymore. SA builds can't capitalise on the burst they have because of mounts sponging 10k damage and easily outrunning a DE in stealth. Non SA deadeye doesn't have the sustain to go 1v1, gives up the high sneak attack damage for quickness access, and still has the mobility issue SA builds have, but now they can't stealth away either. It's basically a core thief that's missing a traitline at this point.

@Blur.3465 said:
In all honesty, I wish they made Thief more like the GW1 Assassin. The entire introduction of stealth to ANY profession is bad and shouldn't have even been a thing to begin with.

That's the spirit. I don't like being loaded up with conditions constantly so lets throw out that out also, there should just be base damage, everyone with the same skills on the same cooldown, and only one dodge each (except evades are apparently overpowered also with thieves so dodge is only for the animation).

No idea where that sarcasm came from, but since thief keeps getting nerfed because of QQ and stealth the profession itself will never be in a good position.
Re-working it and not making it dependent on stealth would be one way of fixing it and making it actually stand toe-to-toe with other professions in actual fights and make it more rewarding and less punishing than it is now.

We made a bunch of suggestions to that effect in the "ask the community" thing the devs did before HoT. The result was the revenant.

On topic; in WvW there's little to no point in running deadeye anymore. SA builds can't capitalise on the burst they have because of mounts sponging 10k damage and easily outrunning a DE in stealth. Non SA deadeye doesn't have the sustain to go 1v1, gives up the high sneak attack damage for quickness access, and still has the mobility issue SA builds have, but now they can't stealth away either. It's basically a core thief that's missing a traitline at this point.

At this point, I just stopped PvPing in general.
The little bit of it that had me return to it is because of Deadeye and playstyle I enjoyed; now I only experience frustration and I don't enjoy playing other professions or other builds in PvP either...so yeah.
Hopefully something changes to make Deadeye play better.

I posted this in the other thread but I believe it's relevant here too. It's not even just that other classes have got better in comparison to thief. Thief has got worse than it previously was simply because Arenanet nerfed our old traits and skills too.

While we used to be able to avoid zergs through stealth now we're punished for it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revealedhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Marked
Detected! is an effect applied to players that enter stealth while they are marked. If they are stealthed for more than 2 seconds while detected, they will become revealed. Exiting stealth before this effect expires will remove this effect.

While we used to have better mobility than most classes now there's mounts: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Warclaw
It also has 3 dodges and is immune to CC along with the fact it has 10,972 health which is almost as much as a full berserker's armor geared thief.

The problem is every strength or mechanic arenet designed to balance thiefs glassyness etc has been eventually nerfed or changed with very little compensation. Add to that most of what separates thief from other classes became redundant as other classes ended up with the very things that were the thief's strenths all while initially being ballanced around their original designs which did not and voila thief is where it’s at and prob not ever gonna change.

I'm not even sure what the point of this nerf was, spamming stealth was never good except for hiding and surprise flipping a location. That was a nice tradeoff for being dead useless in a zerg. At least mesmers have portals. Beyond that its useful defensively for not dying immediately when travelling, and offensively for being annoying to one person. Neither of those seem particularly degenerate. Also, can we just replace "kneel" with "sniper's cover" ? I get that its got great flavor, but its mostly a cast-time tax on sniper's cover, and I can't even imagine a way it would be good outside pve with the low stealth uptime DE has now. Well, I can, but it would only work if the Thief had a base kit as good as the Mesmers. Or Guardians. Or Engineers. Or Warriors

It REALLY bothers me that when I play basically any other class, I feel like I'm piloting a slightly toned-down version of a boss character with solid mechanics, phases of action and key points of interruption. When I play a thief, I feel like I'm playing a slightly buffed mook. They couldn't have picked a nerf better to be PURELY anger inducing. If damage was reduced, we could at least pretend our damage output was too high, and other classes couldn't deal with it. It would still be upsetting, but it would SEEM reasonable. This just feels gross. When they took away unblockable on DJ, I told myself that dodge-into-stealth was still there to define the rifle kit. Its NOT EVEN THAT GOOD! I guess I was wrong. At this point I just REALLY want to know HOW anet thinks about the rifle. Do they dislike it? Is it a mistake? They could at least let us know that "Hey we goofed up and need to go back to the drawing board with Rifle. We're nerfing it into oblivion so it doesn't cause trouble in the mean time, and we're sorry." if that's what is going on. Because if that isn't what they think, they have me fooled.

created my first mesmer and tried to run a pvp. that a so lol compared to DE. Mesmer is like pressing 12345 and then u cat use one of shatter skills. The only problem was scourge. Mesmer has a lot of utilities with 0 sacrifice to his damage. Than i went to my rev. And it was much easier than DE, i live longer, i kill faster, i have more mobility, but i suffer from condies. Then i took warrior. Just push target at mid and thats all. Classes have some defensive cds, but its not about de. We had stealth that doesnt protect of taking damage, but it helpes to avoid some damage.
there is now tons of block in the game, tons of reflecting spells, i cant damage enyone, just if we 1v1. I have no survival abilities comparingto other classes, i have less permission to bring some damage, cuz of tons of blocks, etc. Every class easily kills u, when is near. So give us 7k autoattack or smth else. i sut continue ruining game to ppl i play with cuz any ranger kills me with longbow 4+2

@Aihao.5824 said:
created my first mesmer and tried to run a pvp. that a so lol compared to DE. Mesmer is like pressing 12345 and then u cat use one of shatter skills. The only problem was scourge. Mesmer has a lot of utilities with 0 sacrifice to his damage.

What build, what tier, and how many matches/duels?

OT: I am hardly seeing any DEs this season, so maybe they were somewhat deleted.

i just cameback to the game after a long break, i used to main Ele but it got nerfed and that made me upset so i wanted to try something different.

before i leave i had an old desire to play thief in WvW sometime, so when i came back and played living season story against that bad kitten sniper lady, her style was enough for me to convince me to create DE and craft full Asc gear for it.

Hell, i remember DE was way better than that ! i am new the the whole thing but srsly, (marked) buff literally kills the idea and ulti barely deals with it, and the 1sec stealth from evade is completely useless cuz target usually sticks to you when chasing, so unless u have couple stealthing utilitles up and ready after u dodge , you are pretty much dead.

Shame, i felt like its really fun to play but the amount of effort and time it takes to stay stealthed is realy annoying.

over 2k ranked thief games ( most before season even came out) /age 5.6k hours / 2.1k days
i've always soloq, and i pretty much only wvw and pvp.

to Op most these people here are just anti stealth, dont listen to them. your feelings are correct. Anet has nerfd thieves almost every update since i can remember. almost exclusively IMO. now before someone ask " well do you play any other classes?'', yes. i have one of each class and 2 mes. all has countless hours in wvw .. some have more than others in pvp.
thief gets nerf'd because of people laziness. now some people complaints are warrant. but still mostly L2P. Example; thief stealths and goes for backstab. noob panics, blows all cooldowns doesnt thow AOE on top of self, turn cleave turn cleave dodge cleave , stand back to wall.... naw just does random. complain on forum, anet nerfs back-stab adding 1s delay ( on 3 sec stealth i was d/d thief for 2 years) if you get blocked, miss ,they are invul, they blind you, etc....and every class has abundance of access to these skills, on top of high damage, evades, stealth, stealth reveal, AOE etc., now while BS did hit kinda hard.. and you could stealth stack, they not only nerf'd the stealth via the delay, but lowered damage, stealth stacking in many attempts.

OMGLUL thief removed all my boons via a 2 step skill that has no cooldown . Anet : remove less boons add delay tone damage down.OMGLUL they can port to us and not have to port back. Anet: NERFHAMMER!.. Thieves : well what about our porting issues? Anet: ADD MOAR.

i can go on trust me
the amount of nerfs that thieves have recieved are ridiculous. Mesmer tho? takes what 4 seasons? holosmith still doing everything lol... heck revs are better thieves than thieves without stealth. thieves are wet papers that is still expect to perform like heavy duty paper. and thats how it use to be. now... i hardly touch my thief and i always .. and i mean always go for thieves first even before necro... easy kill

@AsiraasiB.7165 said:
I don't understand... Nerf after nerf after nerf after a buff nerf after nerf.. Anywho here's a list I tried to make, im sure I missed many...

September 2012:
• Heartseeker: Reduced damage of the 100%-50% threshold by 20%. Damage thresholds changed. Old: 100%-66%, 66%-33%, 33%-0%. New: 100%-50%, 50%-25%, 25%-0%.
• Descent of Shadows: This trait’s effect can now only trigger once every 8 seconds.
October 2012:
• Pistol Whip: Reduced damage by 15%.
• Assassin’s Signet: This skill has been updated to grant 15% damage for 5 attacks rather than 50% damage for one attack.
• Whirling Axe: This skill has had evasion removed from the ability and has a missile-reflection effect applied to the whirl effect.
November 2012:
• Dancing Dagger: This skill’s damage has been reduced by 50%.
• Cluster Shot: This skill’s damage is reduced by 15% in PvP.
• Cloak and Dagger: This skill’s damage has been reduced by 33% in PvP only.
December 2012:
• Fear (Stolen item— Skull): This skill now works like the warrior skill “Fear Me.” It will now actually hit its range, but also have a falloff on fear duration based on distance.
• Instinctual Response: Now triggers at 10% damage instead of 20%.(Can be either nerf or buff)
• Piercing Shot: This skill is no longer able to fire at enemies behind the player.
January 2013:
• Leeching Venoms: This trait no longer affects gadgets.
• Smoke Screen: This skill’s blinding pulse no longer follows the thief.
March 2013:
• Caltrops: Reduced duration from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. Now indicates its radius.
• Basilisk Venom skill: No longer immobilizes targets in addition to stunning them.
April 2013:
• Mug trait: Can no longer critically hit. Now heals the thief from a range of 1980 health to 2700 health. (Buff or nerf depending on wether you think healing makes up for no crits)
• Smoke Screen skill: No longer destroys unblockable missiles.
• Trick Shot skill: First arrow is no longer heat-seeking.
May 2013:
• Black Powder skill: No longer fires its projectile backward while moving. The field can still be generated.
• Shadow Return skill: No longer has infinite range.
June 2013:
• Cluster Bomb: Decreased the range set from 1200 to 900.
• Larcenous Strike: Increased the initiative cost to 2.
• Nine Tailed Strike: Increased the initiative cost from 3 to 5.
• Shadow Assault: Increased the initiative cost from 5 to 7.
• Shadow Return (Infiltrator Strike Toggle): This skill is no longer a stun breaker.
July 2013:
• Shadow Trap: This skill now has a maximum duration of 120 seconds.
October 2013:
• Destroy Shadow Trap: This skill now has a 1.5-second cast time. It plays an effect on the thief and on the trap location when it is being cast. Added 5 seconds of regeneration.
• Larcenous Strike: This skill now steals only 1 boon.
• Basilisk Venom: Petrify is now removed on stun break.
December 2013:
• Shadow Return on Sword. Renamed to Infiltrator’s return. Added a 1/4s cast time.
• Critical Strikes 15 – Opportunist. Increased trigger chance to 50%. Increase cooldown from 1s to 5s.
• Critical Strikes VIII – Signet Use. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.
• Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow – This trait functionality has been changed to “Gain initiative when you enter stealth.” 2 init.
• Acrobatics III – Vigorous Recovery. Reduced Vigor duration to 5s from 8s.
• Acrobatics IX – Quick Recovery. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.
• Trickery 5 – Kleptomaniac. Reduce initiative gain from 3 to 2.
• Trickery IV – Flanking Strikes. Move to Master tier. (since it might hinder some builds)
*Trickery VII – Bountiful Theft. Reduced vigor duration to from 15s to 10s.
April 2014:
• Pistol Whip has been split between PvP and PvE. It will now cost 6 initiative in PvP, while maintaining a 5 initiative cost in PvE.
• Disabling Shot (SB): Reduced the length of this skill’s evasion component from 100% of the skill’s duration to 64% of the skill’s duration—an overall reduction of .3 seconds.
• Choking Gas: Reduced the poison per pulse from 5 seconds to 3 seconds

MARCH 2015
• Infiltrator's Arrow: This skill will no longer activate if a valid path to the target point cannot be found.
Infiltrator's Signet: This skill will no longer activate if a valid path to the target cannot be found, except when acting as a stun break.
Infiltrator's Strike: This skill will no longer activate if a valid path to the target cannot be found.
Shadowstep: This skill will no longer activate if a valid path to the target point cannot be found, except when acting as a stun break.
Shadow Escape: This skill will no longer activate if a valid path to the target point cannot be found.
Steal: This skill will no longer activate if a valid path to the target cannot be found

June 2015

Cloaked in Shadow: Gaining stealth blinds nearby foes for 5 seconds. Release a blinding powder when you take falling damage. You take 50% less damage from falling.(big one for me i dont remember all the bad decisions that were made but this one I Hated making this a GM)(ps isn't this when they killed acro too?)

December 2015

Steal now requires a target. Cannot steal for boons only(why tho?)

July 2016

• Stealth Attacks: All stealth attack skills will now have a 1-second recharge between uses.
Staff Strike: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 5%.
Staff Bash: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 5%.
Punishing Strikes: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 5%.
Venomous Aura: The area-of-effect aspect of this trait has been merged into venoms as baseline. The radius has been reduced from 360 to 240. The recharge reduction has moved to Leeching Venoms.

Leeching Venoms: This trait no longer grants might to allies it is applied to. This trait now reduces the recharge of venom abilities.
Devourer Venom: The number of stacks that this skill applies has been reduced from 3 to 2.
Basilisk Venom: The number of stacks that this skill applies has been reduced from 2 to 1. Stun duration has been increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds.

August 2016

Infiltrator's Strike: Fixed a bug that prevented
Infiltrator's Return from becoming available when the skill was used in midair
(tho this was a bug it was a big 'you wish' to thieves face)

March 2017

Traps: All traps created by the thief will have a 1-second arm time before the trap can affect enemies.
Needle Trap: This skill now delivers a strike.
Tripwire: This skill now delivers a strike

September 2017

• Panic Strike: Reduced the duration of poison applied by this trait from 4 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP and WvW.
Impaling Lotus: Reduced duration of conditions applied by this skill by 50% in PvP and WvW.

November 2017
•
Unhindered Combatant: Breaking inhibiting conditions with this trait now causes the thief to lose all endurance regeneration for 4 seconds. Direct endurance gains will still apply the full amount. Swiftness granted by this trait will now occur at the end of the dodge.
Bandit's Defense: The recharge of this skill has been increased from 15 seconds to 20 seconds

Not to mention all the reveals and stealth Ed passed around to other classes these days... Only revealing we can do is on our self
Then there's tracking in stealth.. To me those should be a 50% hits for realism, I'm in stealth and I get it you started to attack but how can you still see me

Any class who's sneezes in our direction can rekt a unskilled thief, heck I've been downed by cleave attacks not even directed at me, not to mention the lovely aoe condis.

over 2k ranked thief games ( most before season even came out) /age 5.6k hours / 2.1k days
i've always soloq, and i pretty much only wvw and pvp.

to Op most these people here are just anti stealth, dont listen to them. your feelings are correct. Anet has nerfd thieves almost every update since i can remember. almost exclusively IMO. now before someone ask " well do you play any other classes?'', yes. i have one of each class and 2 mes. all has countless hours in wvw .. some have more than others in pvp.
thief gets nerf'd because of people laziness. now some people complaints are warrant. but still mostly L2P. Example; thief stealths and goes for backstab. noob panics, blows all cooldowns doesnt thow AOE on top of self, turn cleave turn cleave dodge cleave , stand back to wall.... naw just does random. complain on forum, anet nerfs back-stab adding 1s delay ( on 3 sec stealth i was d/d thief for 2 years) if you get blocked, miss ,they are invul, they blind you, etc....and every class has abundance of access to these skills, on top of high damage, evades, stealth, stealth reveal, AOE etc., now while BS did hit kinda hard.. and you could stealth stack, they not only nerf'd the stealth via the delay, but lowered damage, stealth stacking in many attempts.

OMGLUL thief removed all my boons via a 2 step skill that has no cooldown . Anet : remove less boons add delay tone damage down.OMGLUL they can port to us and not have to port back. Anet: NERFHAMMER!.. Thieves : well what about our porting issues? Anet: ADD MOAR.

i can go on trust me
the amount of nerfs that thieves have recieved are ridiculous. Mesmer tho? takes what 4 seasons? holosmith still doing everything lol... heck revs are better thieves than thieves without stealth. thieves are wet papers that is still expect to perform like heavy duty paper. and thats how it use to be. now... i hardly touch my thief and i always .. and i mean always go for thieves first even before necro... easy kill

No ur wrong! go to the anti theif forum aka mesmer forum (for some reason) and u will clearly see thief is op broken and can be played and be very effective by noobs.steal is as effective as MC was,our ports are better,damage better and ini should be reduced 50% lmao cant believe u guys are complaining about a spec that's barely received any nerfs and last few yrs have just been buffed.i mesam look at all the crazy damage dueling with s/d does, the burst is crazy on sword not to mention the damage d/p does especially the pistol oh man drops people like crazy and just eats thru their sustain.l2p

No ur wrong! go to the anti theif forum aka mesmer forum (for some reason) and u will clearly see thief is op broken and can be played and be very effective by noobs.steal is as effective as MC was,our ports are better,damage better and ini should be reduced 50% lmao cant believe u guys are complaining about a spec that's barely received any nerfs and last few yrs have just been buffed.i mesam look at all the crazy damage dueling with s/d doe, the burst is crazy on sword not to mention the damage d/p does especially the pistol oh man drops people like crazy and just eats thru their sustain.l2p

took me a min lol i was in disbelief... i need coffee hahah . yea thats why i posted that list.